Networking: What Is It, Why Is It The Major Asset Of An MBA Program
Maria |
April 12, 2023

Networking is a crucial aspect of career development, whether you’re a student or a professional. In this episode of Business Casual, our hosts highlight the significance of networking in MBA programs and the business world. They explore the potential benefits of networking, including job opportunities and mentorship, and provide practical tips for effective networking. By being genuine and building relationships over time, attending events, and joining relevant professional organizations, you can expand your network of contacts and gain access to new ideas and perspectives.

Remember, networking is a long-term investment, and building strong relationships takes time and effort. So, start learning how to build meaningful connections by listening to Business Casual!

Episode Transcript

[00:00:07.130] – John

Well, hello everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co hosts Caroline Diarte Edwards and Maria Wich-Villa. We want to talk about networking. You know the term most people consider the idea of a network to be important asset of an MBA experience. The idea here is that you go to a business school for a two year or even a one year experience and you bond with your classmates and even with Alums in a way that will benefit you throughout your life. And we’re not only talking about the professional benefits that may come from knowing people in companies that you may want to get involved with, or perhaps classmates who might be ultimate investors in an entrepreneurship venture that you start, or perhaps they could be customers, but even professionally, personally, actually. Because in a way, what networking really is is purposely developing relationships that are going to enrich your life. So rather than think of a network as merely a ladder to climb throughout your life, I think it’s more important to think of a network as building your community of friends, supporters, people who are going to basically back you throughout your life.

[00:01:32.740] – John

I wonder, Maria, what your concept of networking is and how it played out for you when you were at Harvard Business School.

[00:01:39.280] – Maria

Yeah, I think that networking, if it were purely about the social benefits, then we wouldn’t call it networking. I think there’s a specific name for networking because I do think that it fills, in some ways, a Pragmatic role in our lives. It’s not just about finding people who like the same movies we like and who enjoy talking about the same sort of fun things. Right? At the end of the day, business school is about business, and at the end of the day, business schools are looking for people who will go out and be successful in managerial careers, in business careers that can be defined pretty broadly, right? They can be running a business that is a nonprofit business, or they can be running a business that is associated with the government, for example. But at the end of the day, they’re looking for people who are going to go out and lead. And so I think the benefit of networking at a business school is to not just meet people whom you enjoy, but who can perhaps help you professionally, and perhaps one day you can help them professionally, right? I mean, if there’s one thing that hopefully, if you didn’t already know this, hopefully the past few years have taught us all this, that life is really unpredictable and there are all kinds of ups and downs.

[00:02:46.940] – Maria

And so your network is people who will celebrate your wins and help you maybe along the way to those wins, but they’ll also help you when the chips are down. So I don’t know, I think the networking aspect of business school is probably the most valuable aspect of it. And so I definitely think that if people are going to go to business school, one of the things they should prioritize definitely is the networking aspect.

[00:03:09.710] – John

Caroline, your take.

[00:03:11.440] – Caroline

Yeah, so it’s a big part of the learning experience when you go to business schools. So the academic experience is much more than the exchange between the faculty and the students. There’s a lot of peer to peer learning and that’s why business schools and admissions committees put so much effort into crafting a diverse group of students in the classroom because they rely so heavily on the diversity of perspectives that people bring. And a big part of the job of the faculty is to facilitate that discussion and to bring out those different perspectives. And students often joke that they actually learn more from each other than they learn from the faculty at the end of the day because people have such incredible collective experience from all over the world, from so many different walks of life, so many different professional backgrounds, that there is so much to learn from each other. So I think that’s a big part of why networking is so important in business school, because you just have a lot to learn from each other as well as broadening your business knowledge and building that really strong foundation that people are looking to gain when they’re going to business school.

[00:04:27.430] – Caroline

It also opens your eyes to new opportunities. And I think that’s a big part of a transformational experience that people get at business school. And that’s a big part of how people get exposed to different opportunities that they might not have otherwise considered. Right. It’s very true that people often have a big change of heart about their career goals during that two year period or that one year period when they’re at business school. They will have a change of heart about actually what it is that they want to dedicate their future career to. And that is often due to the discussions that they’ve had with classmates and who have exposed them to ideas and opportunities that they might not have even known about or considered. So I think that networking exchange adds a hugely important dimension to the richness of the learning experience at business school. And then, yes, those relationships then of course create a lot of value throughout the rest of your career. So it’s a wonderful personal network to have, right? You get a lot of personal benefits of having a great network of friends and often friends in a lot of wonderful different places who you could keep in touch with and go and visit and that’s personally enriching to have wonderful network of friends.

[00:05:56.850] – Caroline

But of course, a network of professional, like minded, professionally successful people who are a great group that you can tap into at any point in your life. And I think that’s a wonderful in a way, it kind of gives you a safety net. It means that you can perhaps take risks that you might not otherwise have taken. Because you know that there’s this group of people who you can tap into if things go wrong, right? Who, if the chips are down, there are people who will help you out, who will open doors. And you might not otherwise have had that team backing you up if you had been to business school. And that is something that stays with you for the rest of your life. So that’s hugely valuable and something that I think about as well when I think about networking and the value of business school. An interesting concept I remember learning about networking is that it’s often not your closest friends, whether it be at business school or just your closest friends in general, who are the most important in your career. It’s what they sort of term loose ties. It’s the loose ties who are often the people who really make a big change.

[00:07:16.120] – Caroline

And I’ve seen that in my life and in my husband’s career as well, that it’s not necessarily our ten best friends from my case in Seattle, his ten best friends from Stanford, who have been the people who have found that connected him with that company that then offered him that amazing job opportunity. It’s often not your closest friends who make that big difference. It’s a wider circle. And of course, you’ve got a much bigger, wider circle. And so that extended reach means that that broader group of people are a tremendous resource for you. And I’ve seen that in my life and in his life, that it’s often that extended group of people who may not be your best friends and you may not have had the opportunity to get super close to them, but you appreciate them. They appreciate you. They know enough about you to trust you, and thanks to circumstances and they just happen to know about the right opportunity at the right time, they connect you and things come together. I think that’s the wonderful thing about one of the wonderful things about going to business school is it gives you that broad network. That means that those type of opportunities are more likely to arise because you have that breadth and depth of network.

[00:08:39.750] – John

And I should say that one of the reasons we decided to talk about networking today is a recent Harvard Crimson op ed piece on toxic networking at Harvard Business School. This undergraduate student at Harvard interviewed a number of people at Harvard Business School, both current and past, and came to the conclusion that there are downsides to networking. And we’ll get into some of that in a moment. But one thing that they did mention is that it’s very common at Harvard Business School to get an email or a text message asking you out for coffee from someone who you never even met or even know, with the goal of networking that brings me to this question. How do you network? I mean, it may seem like a silly question. Do you go out for a beer with a person at a bar? Do you go on a travel trip with them? How do you actually network at Harvard Business School?

[00:09:41.040] – Maria

Maria I think there are three primary places. One is within the classroom, so especially that first year. One of the critiques that Harvard Business School often gets, and I understand why is that that first year curriculum is the core curriculum, and you are with a section of 89 other students, and you have every class with that section, and you don’t take any other classes, and there are no electives, and it’s a pretty rigid thing. But the upside of that is that you do get to know those 90 people pretty well during the course of that year. So even if these are people who would otherwise not network with you because you’re not useful to them per se, you do actually get to know them pretty well. The other major place for networking, and I think probably the most valuable one, is the student clubs. So that’s where you’re going to find people who have at least some sort of an interest similar to yours. It could be a very overt professional interest, such as a venture capital or media entertainment or real estate, or it could be even I made some good friends doing some volunteer work through a club that was helping out nonprofits when I was in business school.

[00:10:48.260] – Maria

And so those are people who, even though professionally I didn’t go into the nonprofit space, these were people who shared my values. And so I think that that’s probably the best place to do so. And then the third place is also just partying. Just socializing, I guess, would be the more diplomatic term to use. But there’s a lot of parties in business school, and if you go to them, that’s probably the best way to meet a lot of people very quickly. Of course, in that scenario, you’re not going to get to know people super well, but then perhaps afterwards you might meet up with them or get a coffee or what have you to get to know them better.

[00:11:23.130] – John

True. And at INSEAD, I know there are a lot of opportunities, even in Accelerated MBA program, to network. Caroline how do students at INSEAD network with each other?

[00:11:33.790] – Caroline

Yeah, it’s very similar. So you have your classroom, and so you will get to know the people in your section very well. You will work in various teams, so you’ll get to know those people extremely well. And then there are a lot of social events. There are different clubs and activities. I would say that just be open and don’t be too calculating about who you think it is that you need to get to know. Right. Because actually you don’t know who it is. Maybe there are certain people who if you know that you need to make a certain career change and they’ve worked in that before, then great, it makes sense to sit down with them and talk about it. But beyond that, you don’t necessarily know who is going to really be able to make a big impact on your life in the longer term and don’t go into the experience thinking about trying to rank who is more important than who else in your cohort. So I would encourage students and candidates to be open, to be humble, to just really make an effort to get to know people and not try to second guess who is going to be able to play a more important role.

[00:12:54.620] – Caroline

And quite frankly, you can’t anticipate who is going to be more successful in the longer term. And from the people that I was at school with at INSEAD, and certainly it’s the same for my husband from his GSB cohort, there are some surprises. The people who did really well.

[00:13:15.710] – John

Well, in fact, let me just put it out here, okay? Before the current Prime Minister took his post in Great Britain, the Guardian read a story which basically said, no one knows who Rishi, who is the current Prime Minister, was at Stanford. In other words, he was so low profile that no one remembered him. And this included the faculty. And lo and behold, now he is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, one of the great nations of our world. So that proves your .One person who was quoted in this Harvard Crimson article mentioned something that I think segues nicely to what Caroline just said about you don’t really know who’s going to be who on campus because people have different trajectories. Some people will be wildly successful, others only mildly so. But this one student who is actually a current PhD student at Harvard School said, there are times where I’ll be meeting someone and it becomes clear very quickly that I am not somebody. My parents are not somebody, so there’s not all that much they can gain from me. I think that’s a sad perspective to actually have because that person could be the future dean of a business school even at Harvard, for God’s sake, in the next quarter of a century, or could end up being the CEO of a company and should never be thinking that people don’t have something to gain from you.

[00:14:53.600] – John

Maria, are there other downsides to networking?

[00:14:56.820] – Maria

I don’t know that if I would call it a downside. Look, there’s always going to be some opportunistic people out there who are going to find out that, oh, Maria’s parents are public school teachers and boy, she’s not useful for me at all. But I do like to think that, no, I am not useful, friend, I’m not useful for you. But that having been said, I do think that a lot of people at business school are are fundamentally good people and I you know, you just want to get to know people. I don’t know, I think people who go to business school tend to have a lot of curiosity about the world, about the business world, and they tend to have a lot of curiosity about others. Obviously, if you’re networking with someone and they’re treating you like garbage, then yeah, okay, maybe don’t network. Maybe I guess that is a downside. But overall, I don’t see any downside whatsoever to getting to know people better. And as Caroline has said, you never know where those close ties or those loose ties are going to come in handy later on down the road. So while I’m sure there are opportunistic people everywhere, I will say that I don’t necessarily think that’s the majority of people in business school.

[00:16:07.320] – John

I would bet that there are people who are really exceptionally good at networking and you could tell when you’re on campus and a fellow student with them. And then there are people who are maybe not so good. Caroline, do you agree?

[00:16:20.810] – Caroline

Yeah, I mean, you get all types, right? And that’s also part of the diversity of the business school community. You’ve got people from a lot of different backgrounds, a lot of different personalities. And so some people are, as you say, natural, networkers, and can really work the room. And some people, it doesn’t come so naturally to them and they have to make a bit more of an effort. But I think everyone knows that it’s really worth making an effort and that’s why they’re there. And so they do want to make an effort. Right. I think it’s very rare that someone goes to business school and doesn’t want to engage with their classmates.

[00:17:00.700] – John

The other thing I’ll say is this, and I think this is a fair thing to say. As you go through life, you’re going to meet a lot of different people. But the classmates that you’ll meet in an elite MBA program, man for man, woman for woman, are going to be a cut above many you’ll meet in the workplace. I mean, the fact that you’re all in the same boat at this time. Meaning starting an MBA program and going through it with them. In some cases, struggling through classes or trying to make an impact or trying to do good in an organization on campus. You’re all in this together, and it’s an unusual kind of melting pot for many, and a place where you’re going to really meet some incredible people with remarkable stories, many of whom will really be going somewhere and doing something meaningful with their lives. And I don’t think that there are many opportunities in your life even after business school. Sure, you could go to a top flight organization like a McKinsey or Goldman Sachs or Microsoft or Google, but I would bet person for person, you’re not going to meet the kind of incredible people you meet and are able to collide with in the elite MBA environment.

[00:18:19.850] – John

Maria, what do you think about that? Do you think that’s true or not true?

[00:18:23.920] – Maria

Yeah, I do think it’s true. I think business schools, when they are crafting a class, are looking for people of similar intelligence levels, similar ambitious ambition levels, similar histories of making an impact wherever they go. And so to the extent that you get into a business school program where a lot of the people are like you, if it’s a good fit, then yeah, you’re going to be surrounded by people who are just as committed to trying to make some sort of positive change in the world. Or perhaps they’re doing it through growing a company or through investing money or what have you. But yeah, I think that’s great. And I think one other thing to be said for networking is that networking is a skill that you’re going to need the rest of your life. So if you’re not comfortable with it going into business school, what a great place to learn networking as well, because once you get out into the real world afterwards, you’re going to need to network in your profession, right? Lots of professions are smaller. It’s a smaller world than we think. And so whatever your given profession might be, learning how to network, going to conferences, meeting other people that your company might partner with or acquire or do a joint venture with or what have you, that’s a skill that’s valuable for you in the long term anyway.

[00:19:35.770] – Maria

So anyone listening to this who might be a little pentative or hesitant about the networking aspect of business school, jump right in and get comfortable with it because it’s also going to help you after you graduate.

[00:19:46.670] – John

Yeah, that’s a really good point. Caroline, I wonder if you could offer some advice for some natural introverts who find themselves on a business school campus now having a network. What should they do? Because for many of them this could be a little more socially awkward or difficult than it would be for more outgoing people.

[00:20:07.970] – Caroline

Well, I think that because part of your learning experience will be working in teams and there’s a lot of teamwork involved in the MBA curriculum, I think that helps a lot because then you’re in a smaller group. So I think that is often a great context for the introverts to get to know people and begin to build their network. So I think that is a good starting point. And probably perhaps making an effort to join clubs and getting involved in structured events could be a great opportunity for those people who feel less comfortable about just going to a cocktail party and working their way around the room. If they are at an event that has a bit more structure, they’re part of a club working on teams, I think that can give them a context in which it’s easier to get to know people. But at business school you’re just so busy with so many different things that I think the networking just kind of happens naturally. And I don’t think that I haven’t observed people sort of struggling with it or feeling lonely a business school, because there are so many demands on your time and so many opportunities.

[00:21:31.390] – Caroline

And schools are also looking to attract and that’s part of the selection process, is that they are looking to select candidates who will really embrace those opportunities. And they are specifically looking for people who will come to the school, not just to sit in a classroom and learn as much as suck up as much knowledge as they can and land a great job and move on. They are looking specifically to recruit students who will embrace the broader experience and really take advantage of all those other opportunities. And they really have that in mind when they’re evaluating candidates. So that’s an important thing to keep in mind that when you present yourself as a candidate, they are looking for those qualities. Are you someone who’s going to be able to put yourself out there? But you don’t have to be it’s an important point, John, that you don’t have to be an extrovert. Right. But you have to have that willingness and openness to take advantage of those opportunities.

[00:22:42.130] – John

Maria, when you think about the benefits of an MBA education, where would you rank networking? Is it above the actual number one and tools you acquire in the class?

[00:22:53.350] – Maria

Sorry, number one? It’s number one. It’s number one. It’s number one for sure. I mean, what you learn in classes is frequently the different schools have different Pedagogies and they all teach slightly different things in slightly different ways, but a lot of the material is going to be pretty similar from school to school. I think the network, some of the things you learn in school you will carry with you for years into the future, but it’s nothing compared to the network that you get from having spent two years surrounded by like minded or again, you might not all have identical interests, but you do have identical drive. And so I think that does I don’t know, I think for the long term, that’s been far more beneficial than the Cranberry case from Operations or some of those other cases that stick with you for years in the future personally.

[00:23:44.890] – John

Caroline, do you put networking that high in your list of benefits of an MBA education?

[00:23:50.650] – Caroline

In the longer term, I think that the network and having that group of alumni that you’re connected with is the biggest benefit of having an MBA. The knowledge that you gain, I think, really pays dividends in the first five to ten years post MBA. But after that, in your career, you’re probably building off your professional experience rather than necessarily something that you learned in the HBS or the INSEAD or the London Business School classroom. But what you are relying on continually and you may come back to repeatedly is your network. So I think that is the aspect of the program that really continues to pay dividends.

[00:24:36.340] – John

Although, if I recall this correctly, I think that your husband a Stanford MBA graduate. When the two of you were moving from India to Silicon Valley, he was able to make those connections at Stanford more than ten years earlier count for your relocation and making it smoother, easier, and frankly, more successful than maybe it otherwise could have been. Am I right?

[00:25:04.910] – Caroline

Yes. Moving back to the Bay Area was definitely very easy, given that he had studied at Stanford and most of his or large chunk of his classmates stayed here. And so they were delighted that he was planning to move back, and they really helped with that process. So, yeah, that was definitely a huge benefit. Something to add is that, as you said, we lived in India, we’ve lived in other different countries. And I think if you think about your network and the network you’re going to build when you go to business school, think about the composition of that network and where that network is going to be. Because when we were moving around in different countries, actually, my husband Arabica drew much more on my INSEAD network than his Stanford network because INSEAD has a tremendous network all around the globe, right. So in a lot of different countries, there’s a really substantial MBA alumni network. And that’s not so much the case for Stanford GSB because it’s a much smaller school and the graduates tend to stay in the US. And even largely concentrated in the Bay Area. But of course, here in Silicon Valley, there’s nothing like having a Stanford GSB network, right.

[00:26:16.570] – Caroline

That’s the best network that you can have here. So I would encourage candidates to think carefully about which network is the best fit for them in the longer term, given their career aspirations and where they see themselves being in the longer term.

[00:26:31.960] – John

Yeah. And back on the Harvard Crimson Oped piece. One of the things that this author complains about is the issue of exclusivity and basically argues that networking on some level is nothing more than a club that defines who’s in and who’s not allowed in, which I will call BS on. Frankly. It’s absolutely essential that you make these connections and you benefit from them. And after all, you go to Harvard Business School. You go to INSEAD London Business School. Columbia. Stanford. Yeah. The brand makes a difference. It makes a difference of who your classmates are and where they’re going to go in life. It’s hardly an exclusive club that disallows people. Right, Maria?

[00:27:24.200] – Maria

I mean, I think part of it is that you have to go and make it your club or find the pockets within the school where you find people who are like minded. And as Caroline mentioned earlier, I think this is why the schools are looking for people. They’re not just looking for brains and they’re not just looking for professional accomplishments. They are also looking for people who have a history of giving back to the communities that they’re a part of. Whether it’s an alumni community, whether it’s a campus community, whether it’s just through general community service, at least seeing that there are people who have a sense of giving back to others, because then that bodes well for this person. Giving back to the alumni community and giving back to the community while they’re on campus. And so it’s an exclusive club, but if you are not from an exclusive background and you are given a seat at one of these schools, this is your opportunity to try to become a part of that exclusive club. And it’s on you to figure out your own way and your own path forward for doing that.

[00:28:24.770] – John

Really good point. And again, this is something that you can learn, practice, experience in a business school environment. It’s something that you can use throughout your life to great advantage. And it’s something that when you enter a business school, even before you enter, and you join the Facebook groups of people who are about to enter the given class that you’ve been enrolled in, the networking begins right before you even set foot on campus, and it’s essential to you. All right, I think we covered networking pretty good. Maria and Caroline, thank you so much. And for all of you out there, this is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. You’ve been listening to our weekly podcast, Business Casual.

Networking: What Is It, Why Is It The Major Asset Of An MBA Program
Maria |
April 12, 2023

[00:00:00] John Byrne: Well hello everyone, this is John Byrne with Poets and Quants, welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-hosts Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. Today we have a special guest, Heidi Hillis from Fortuna Admissions. She is based in Australia, is a senior expert coach for Fortuna, and has three degrees, all from Stanford, a BA in English literature, that’s my degree, an MA in Russian studies, and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business. And we have Heidi here to discuss some really fascinating research. Here’s what Fortuna did. They dug into the last Two class profiles of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

That’s the class of โ€˜23 and the class of โ€˜24. They looked up all these folks on LinkedIn to identify a little bit more about their backgrounds, including their former employers and their places of undergraduate education to come up with an incredible analysis. Heidi, welcome.

[00:00:46] Heidi Hillis: Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

[00:00:48] John Byrne: Heidi, what is, what are the big takeaways from your deep dive discovery?

[00:00:54] Heidi Hillis: It’s hard to know even where to start. I think there’s a quite a few interesting kind of trends that we’ve seen that have taken place over the years. We were mentioning before the call that traditionally there hadn’t been, 10 years ago, if you’d looked, you wouldn’t have seen so many tech companies represented, but now there’s a big presence of tech companies who are feeding a lot of these MBA programs in Stanford in particular.

I think that the thing that was really interesting was, looking, not just at where the companies that were feeding the students, the applicants to Stanford. When they were working there, when they were applying, but actually the paths that they took prior to their current job.

So how many people were working, if you look at McKinsey, for example, or Bain and BCG, those are obviously companies that feed a lot of applicants to the program, but we found 20%, which seemed to be normal of, the class came from consulting, but if you actually look into the numbers in their background, You would see that actually 37 percent of these two classes had worked at McKinsey sometime prior, or actually in consulting, so it was, it’s The kind of the patterns that are behind, what you would normally see in terms of what Stanford tells us.

So you get a sense of the paths that people have taken. And so that’s something that was really interesting to see.

[00:02:16] John Byrne: Absolutely. And of course, this is this analysis goes so far beyond what any applicant would learn by simply looking at the class profile that the school up because, this level of detail is never available to people.

[00:02:33] Heidi Hillis: No, and yeah, for example, you could see that, Stanford will say that they have around, each year around 50 percent of applicants are international, which is a great statistic and gives you lots of hope if you are an international student. But when you dig into the numbers, you actually understand that.

75 percent of the people who get into Stanford actually went to a U. S. University. So even if you’re international, it does have does seem to have kind of an advantage of having been educated in the U. S. That seems to be something that they look for. However, I think. The concentration of universities in the U.

S. that are feeding to Stanford is something also that, if you’re looking at it, you might find a little bit dis, disconcerting. There’s a few programs that are really, obviously the top. Programs as you would expect places like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, the Ivies but if you look at the international universities very diverse from all over the world, really lots of people from different places, which is also really interesting.

[00:03:38] John Byrne: Yeah I tell you, one of the things that struck me in the data is how consistent it is. 10 years ago, we did the same exercise at Stanford and a bunch of other. Schools from Harvard and Dartmouth and Columbia and talk and a few others and back 10 years ago, we found that 25. 2 percent of the class of 2013 were from Ivy League colleges.

And the Ivy League 8 schools, not including Stanford. And if you included Stanford, it would have been 32. 6%. So now, let’s move forward to your data. And in 23, 30. 7 percent went to Ivy League schools, even above the 25. 2. And in 24, 27. 9 percent went to Ivy League schools. So it looks like Stanford has gotten even a little bit more elitist than it was.

Yeah,

[00:04:41] Heidi Hillis: It’s, it is it’s what the data says, right? Obviously, this is a sample. We have 80 percent of the two classes. So we don’t know where those other people went. And that might skew the data a little bit in another direction. But it is, if you look at there’s 15 schools, that include the Ivy’s and then you have UC Berkeley and obviously Stanford that really are contributing, 49 percent of the class of 23, 47. 3 percent of the class of 24. So that is a pretty heavy concentration and But, if you actually look into the data, you see a lot of people also, each of these is actually an individual story.

You see a lot of people who come from other schools as well. So it’s not like you have to give up hope if you come from a different school. I see a lot of individual stories that, from the whole range of U. S. schools that really are feeding into Stanford. So I think what the data doesn’t also tell you, unfortunately, is how many of these Of people from these backgrounds are actually applying.

So

[00:05:39] John Byrne: good point.

[00:05:40] Heidi Hillis: It’s it’s hard to know. And sometimes I think people this is. A path that a lot of people who go to these schools plan to take from the very beginning. So I would see, it would be interesting to know that I don’t know that we will ever find that out. But, um, that’s something to keep in mind as well.

[00:05:56] John Byrne: Yeah. And that’s a fair point. Because how reflective are these results of the applicant pool reflective of an elitist attitude probably a combination of if I had to guess, but, it is what it is, and these institutions obviously are great filters, so you come from McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and you go to Harvard or Stanford or Penn, and you pass through a fine filter, and it makes you less of a admissions risk than if you went to, frankly, the University of Kentucky and worked for a company that no one knows of.

That’s just the reality of elite MBA admissions, right?

[00:06:40] Heidi Hillis: Yeah. And so you will see that the people who are not going, you’ll see a lot of the people who you would, the profiles that you would expect, the Harvard undergrad that then goes to Goldman that then was working at a PE firm.

That’s a really typical profile that you’ll see. But you’ll also see some really, unique and interesting ones, which I think, Okay. Helps you understand that if you don’t have that path, you also have a real chance at these schools, and maybe even more of a chance, again, not knowing, how many of those Goldman P.

E. Harvard grads are applying. So I’m thinking of the guy that I saw who he went to UPenn undergrad, studied engineering, started out a kind of pretty typical path working in private equity, but then made a big pivot to work for go to Poland where he was working in a real estate investment firm and the head coach of the Polish lacrosse team.

So you have really interesting profiles like that, that you can see that. aren’t necessarily taking that typical path. And sometimes that really does help you stand out.

[00:07:42] John Byrne: True. Maria, what surprised you most about the data?

[00:07:48] Maria Wich-Vila: Wow. I think we already covered, the, one of the biggest ones was the number, the percentage of people who would had some sort of either their undergraduate or graduate education within the United States.

Intuitively, I had felt that was true. And sometimes when I try to, give some honest, tough love to applicants from certain countries, and they’ll say, oh, but Maria, I think you’re being a little too pessimistic. After all, X percent of the applicants at these schools are international, and Y percent are from a certain geography internationally.

I’ll say yes, but that doesn’t mean that they’re all Solely from that area. A lot of them are, do have significant international educational experiences. I think another, speaking of the international piece the percentage of people who had significant international work experience as well was something else that really jumped out at me.

Because it would signal to me that Stanford really does value this global perspective both within probably its domestic applicants and also its international applicants. So I thought that was also a really interesting piece of data that jumped out at me.

[00:08:52] John Byrne: Now remind me what percentage was that?

[00:08:56] Heidi Hillis: People who are international

[00:08:58] John Byrne: who have had international work experience.

[00:09:01] Heidi Hillis: I think it was 30%.

[00:09:02] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty

[00:09:04] John Byrne: impressive.

[00:09:04] Caroline Diarte Edwards: 30%, which I was thrilled to see. As well as coming from in Seattle and Europe. Obviously the international schools put a heavy emphasis on international experience and I hadn’t fully appreciated that. A school like Stanford would also.

really value that to the same extent. And it’s great to see that candidates are making the effort to get outside of the U. S. and get international experience because I think you gain so much from that exposure. And you bring more to the classroom if you’ve got that experience. I know that both Maria and Heidi.

I’ve worked outside of the home countries as well. Pre MBA and I think that you just have so much more to contribute to the whole experience. And it was great to see that 30%.

[00:09:50] John Byrne: What else struck you, Caroline?

[00:09:53] Caroline Diarte Edwards: We talked about the concentration of academic institutions, and I was also surprised about the concentration in employers.

So while there is a very long list of employers where the students have worked pre MBA when you dig into the career paths that they’ve taken there is some interesting concentration. Heidi had noted that the reports that There are 26 companies that account for nearly one third of the class in terms of where they were working right before Stanford.

But when you look at their whole career history, those same 26 companies represent over 60 percent of the class. So that is, yeah, that’s quite extraordinary that so many of the class have experience of working at quite a short list of companies.

[00:10:46] Heidi Hillis: I think that’s reflective of, if you really think about it, you have a lot of these companies.

You’re talking about the Goldmans and the Morgan Stanley and McKinsey that have really large programs that recruit out of undergrad that are really training grounds for. A lot of people that then on to do, work in industry or go on to work for in finance in particular, a lot of people starting out at some of these bulge bracket banks and then going into.

Private equity or smaller firms. So the diversity within finance in terms of where they were working prior to MBA is quite large compared to consulting because there just aren’t as many consulting firms, but a lot of people in financing, a lot of different firms, but they, a lot of them really do start out in these training programs, these analyst programs that are so big and popular.

[00:11:34] John Byrne: Yeah, true. And looking back, I did this exercise as well. The feeder companies to Stanford 10 years ago in the class of 2023, 22. 8 percent from McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and your data, 22. 5 percent work there. Incredible consistency over a 10 year period. When you look at the top six employers 10 years ago, they were McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and JP.

Morgan Chase. They accounted alone for 34 percent of all the students in the class of 20, 2013 at Stanford. In your data for 23 and 24 they account for 29. 8%, just a few percentage points less. So remarkable consistency. And I think you’re right, Heidi, this is a function of the fact that these firms bring in a lot of people who are analysts and actually expect them after 3 to 5 years to go to a top MBA school.

So there’s a good number of them in the applicant pool to choose from and let’s face it, they’re terrific candidates.

[00:12:46] Heidi Hillis: Yeah. I think another pool of really terrific candidates that you see, and I don’t know what the 2013 data was saying, but is the US military, which is really, I think, again, something that I felt having worked with lots of military candidates myself, understand that, Yeah, intuitively, I would have expected, but to see it in the data is actually really interesting.

You just see Stanford in particular, I think, is really looking for leadership potential, and it’s so hard to show that as an analyst, as a consultant, but as in the military, these people have such incredible leadership experience that it really helps them to stand out.

[00:13:23] John Byrne: Yeah. And let’s tell people what the data shows.

How many out of us military academies,

[00:13:28] Heidi Hillis: In all in total, we had, 20 over the two years. So that’s in the two classes that we found. So that’s, a pretty large number. And they come from all the different academies, right? So you’ll find them from different, not academies, in the army, navy and the marines.

So you’ll see that. And you also see quite a few, in the data we’ll, we see a lot from the Israeli military as well, but that’s actually a little bit difficult to because every Israeli does go into the military. So it’s they have that in their background. Any Israeli candidate would have Israeli military background as well, but again, that’s.

Place that people can really highlight their leadership. So you had eight people from who had been, who were Israeli and obviously had military experience where they were able to demonstrate significant impact and leadership prior to MBA.

[00:14:18] John Byrne: Yeah. In fact, 10 years ago, roughly 2%. of the class went to either West Point or the U.

S. Naval Academy. Good number of people actually from the military. Maria, any other observations?

[00:14:34] Maria Wich-Vila: Yeah, I was also surprised at the fact that within those top employers And when we look at the tech companies, it was Google and Facebook and Meta with a pretty large showing. Google was actually the fourth largest employer after the MBBs and, but then, I was expecting there to be an equal distribution amongst those famous large cap technology companies.

So I, I would have expected even representation amongst Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, et cetera. And yet. Apple and Amazon only had one or two people each versus Google at 25. So I thought that was really fascinating and it makes me wonder if perhaps it’s a function of maybe Google and Meta might give their younger talent more opportunities to lead impactful projects, perhaps.

I’m just guessing here, but maybe Apple and Amazon perhaps are more hierarchical. And maybe don’t give their younger talent so many opportunities, but I was really surprised by that. I would have expected a much more even distribution amongst the those famous those famous tech companies.

[00:15:40] John Byrne: Yeah. You’re right. And I crunched the numbers on the percentages and Google took three and a half percent of the two classes and that’s better than Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase. Facebook had 2. 7 percent and Microsoft at 1. 5, and I was shocked at Amazon because, Amazon is widely known as the largest single recruiter of MBAs in the past five years.

At one point, they were recruiting a thousand MBAs a year, but in, in one sense, maybe Amazon quite doesn’t really have the prestige. For Stanford MBAs who might rather work elsewhere, I think that might be is, you look at the employment reports at a lot of the other schools and Amazon is number one at a number of schools and very low percentage of people from Amazon going to Stanford.

We don’t know, of course, how many. Leaving Stanford and going back to Amazon, but it can’t be that many.

[00:16:41] Heidi Hillis: I wonder if there’s something about just a proximity effect here. You have the plate, like the meta and Google just being so close to Stanford, maybe it just, attracts more people applying because they.

They’re almost on campus and maybe, just being Amazon all over the world and different places could be not attracting as many. I don’t know.

[00:17:03] John Byrne: Yeah, true. The other thing, the analysis shows, and this is what you also gather from the more public class profile is really the remarkable diversity of talent that a school like Stanford can attract year after year.

It is, it blows you away, really. The quality and the diversity of people despite the concentration of undergraduate degree holders or company employers, it’s it’s really mind boggling, isn’t it?

[00:17:33] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, they come from everywhere and really interesting paths and even the people I think that, have those kind of typical paths, you see a lot of diversity within them as well.

So I think, even if you’re coming from a Goldman or a McKinsey having lived in another country or gone to done a fellowship abroad or running a non profit on the side. These things are actually what helped them to stand out. But you do see some really interesting, I think, profiles, too, of people who’ve just done, you get a sense of what it would be like to be in the Stanford classroom.

People from really unique and different backgrounds. People who come from all different countries and lawyers, doctors people who have run, nonprofits in developing countries people running large programs for places like Heineken or Amazon too. But, it’s a real diversity of backgrounds.

[00:18:27] John Byrne: Now, Heidi, I wonder if one is an applicant. Is this discouraging to read and here’s why if I’m not from Harvard, Stanford, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, and if I didn’t work for McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Goldman, Google am I at a disadvantage and should I even try? Some people look at the data and come away with that conclusion.

[00:18:52] Heidi Hillis: I think it’s a reality check for a lot of people. I think it’s just, it’s really, it just helps people understand, what it, the difficulty of this, why it’s so competitive, but I think that there is, again, behind the kind of the percentages, you do look at these individual profiles and I would get, I would actually take a lot of hope from it if I were looking, as an applicant, because especially if you are.

Maybe a little bit more of a big fish or small fish in a bigger pond or big fish in a smaller pond you go to Rice or you go to Purdue or, and you do really well, those are the people who, they’re definitely looking for that diversity of background as well as the international.

I think that’s really neat. think that, instead of looking at the data and saying, why not, why I shouldn’t even apply, it’s why not me look at these other profiles of people who have taken really unique paths that that do get in. So I think it is actually a Kind of a mix of both, it is a reality check for a lot of people, but it’s actually, there is so much diversity in the data as well.

I think also one thing that we haven’t really covered is about is just the prevalence of social impact in, that’s really taken hold of the class. I don’t, again, going back to your 2013 analysis, I’m not sure how easy it was to tell that, but a lot of you can see reflected in the both the types of organizations people are working for, but also their titles and the kinds of work that they’re doing that that there’s a huge 40 percent of the class of the two classes had some kind of social impact in their background.

Whether that’s, running their own nonprofit on the side or volunteering or. Running trans transformational kind of programs within companies that are, either in finance or consulting or in industry. That’s a big trend. I think that people can take heart from as well.

So if you’re working if you feel like you’re in an organization where you’re not getting the leadership that you. can use to highlight your potential for Stanford, that’s definitely a place you can go is working for in volunteer capacity for a non profit or on the board of a of some kind of foundation.

Those are the kinds of places that you can highlight your potential

[00:21:00] John Byrne: true. And I know we have a overrepresented part of every applicant pool at an elite business school are software engineers from India. And I wonder in your analysis, how many of them did you find from like the IITs?

[00:21:18] Heidi Hillis: That’s a good question. The IITs, it was again, it was one of these you have about 50 percent of classes internet, so 25 percent of the class. was educated outside of the US. The IITs are going to be up there. Let’s see from India, 2. 1 percent of the class came from India. So probably, I don’t know offhand exactly how many of those were IITs, but

[00:21:43] John Byrne: I’ve had a lot of them.

[00:21:45] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, probably a lot of them. Although I think, that’s the other thing is that people who come, to work with me from India, they feel like if they haven’t gone to IIT, then that’s going to be a disadvantage. But I think, you’ll find that there are, there’s representation of other universities as well.

Definitely.

[00:22:00] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah, I was just looking at the list of undergrad institutions. And for example, you’ve got Osmania University from Hyderabad. So it is not, it’s not all IIT. Okay.

[00:22:12] John Byrne: Yeah, exactly. And Caroline, 1 of the things about the institutions that are really represented here and that I don’t really see unless I missed it.

I didn’t see a Cambridge or an Oxford. Two of the best five universities in the world. And I wonder if that’s just a function of fewer people in the applicant pool or what? What do you think that could be about?

[00:22:36] Caroline Diarte Edwards: I had a look through the uk Institutions and you have got cambridge in there.

I think I also noticed. Bristol university there are a few different universities. So i’m aston university, which is not it’s not on a par with Oxford or Cambridge. So I think that speaks to the point that Heidi made that you don’t have to have been to an elite school to get into Stanford.

Aston is a good solid university, nothing wrong with Aston, but it’s not it’s not one of the top UK universities. So there’s definitely some interesting variety in the educational backgrounds of the students going to Stanford. And

[00:23:16] John Byrne: then, yeah, it is if you’re a big fish in a small pond, like Afton, you’ll you could still stand out in the pool.

[00:23:26] Heidi Hillis: Absolutely. There’s a lot of really interesting background, you have look hard on blue and you have Miami University and some really smaller universities abroad. I think. Again, it’s really, if you look at that, it does give you hope because it’s really what you do afterwards and if you, obviously, if you come from one of these schools, you probably want to be in the top, 5 percent of the graduating class, you want to show that you have the GPA that can support an academic background that they feel comfortable that you’ll be able to compete academically, but, and maybe that’s what you’re Offset by the, the GMA or the scores, you don’t know, we don’t have those on here.

But, um, the path post university really becomes much more important in those cases. What you’ve done since then where you’ve, how you’ve risen from starting at a entry level position to, running a division or heading a country group or something like that.

[00:24:21] John Byrne: And as far as Cordon Bleu goes, every good business program needs a Cordon Bleu, for God’s sake, right?

You want to eat well at those NBA parties, don’t you?

[00:24:32] Heidi Hillis: Absolutely.

[00:24:35] John Byrne: Maria, I’m sure that was true at Harvard.

[00:24:38] Maria Wich-Vila: I wasn’t the one doing the cooking but I certainly, I was certainly a member of the wine and cuisine society where I happily participated in the eating and consuming a part of that.

But to, to the point that we were just recently talking about. regarding being a big fish in a small pond. Not only have I seen it personally with applicants that I’ve worked with who did not attend these elite universities, but even many years ago, I attended a, an admissions conference where Kirsten Moss, who was the former head of admissions at Stanford, she actually told stories about how they’ve accepted people who even attended community college.

But within the context of that community college, they had really moved mountains. And she said that one of the things that they look for is, Within the context and the opportunities that you’ve been given, how much impact have you had? So maybe you don’t have an opportunity to go to Yale or MIT or IIT for your undergraduate, but whatever opportunity you have been given, have you grabbed that opportunity and really made the most of it and really driven change?

So she specifically called out, I believe, I believe there were two students that year at the GSB who had both started their educations, their higher educations at community college. Anything is possible. It really is about finding the people who, wherever they go, they jump in and make an impact.

[00:25:55] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, I think that to that point, I think it can almost be a more difficult if you’ve gone to Harvard and then worked at one of these, gone on one of these paths because we know that there’s, that’s an overrepresented pool in the applicant pool to stand out among those to have had that, that pedigree sometimes can be a disadvantage, right?

If you haven’t done as much as you should have with that, or if you started at that high level to show that level of progress over the course of your career is actually a little bit more difficult. Okay. And coming from a community college and rising to, a country level manager in some places is actually puts you at a significant advantage, I would say.

[00:26:31] Maria Wich-Vila: Because it’s hard for those people, it’s hard for those people to stand out, but also I think some of them go on autopilot, right? I think some people are on this kind of achievement, elite achievement treadmill, where they’re not even really thinking about what do I want to do with my life?

They’re always reaching for whatever that next, what’s the best college to go to? It’s Harvard Princeton. Yeah. Okay. Now that I’m here, what’s the best employer to work for? It’s McKinsey, Bain, BCG and without actually perhaps stopping to think about what is my passion? What impact do I want to make in the world?

And so I feel sometimes those autopilot candidates, I feel a little bit bad for them because they’re doing everything quote unquote and yet sometimes when you speak with them, that passion just isn’t there. And I do think that may ultimately harm them in the very, very elite business school.

Admissions because business schools want people who are passionate because at the end of the day, in order to do hard things, you’re going to need passion at some point to get you through those low periods. And so I think that’s something business schools look for. And I do think that sometimes these.

These kind of autopilot candidates might sometimes be at a disadvantage.

[00:27:29] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, I think that, to that point look in the data, when you look at it, you see so many people who’ve gone to McKinsey, Bain, Weasley, or Goldman, but then there’s a, you see a lot of success for people who’ve actually pivoted.

So those pivots that are post The second or third job really do show you that, if you’re if you get a candidate who’s coming from, still at McKinsey, okay, that’s fine. They have to be the top 5 percent of McKinsey, like they have to be going to get so many McKinsey applicants that the only the, you can look at the data in a couple ways.

One is, oh, my God, they took 12 people from McKinsey and the others. Oh, my God, they only took 12 people from McKinsey, right? That’s So if you want to be one of those 12, you have to be the top 12 in the world, right? Whereas if you’ve gone to McKinsey and then done an externship at a health care startup and then moved on to be a product manager at for health at Google, that kind of a path is definitely showing a little bit more, maybe risk taking, maybe ability to follow your passions.

So I think that. When I see candidates who come to me, for example, and they’re like, not thinking about applying now, but maybe in a year or two, I say, look for an externship, maybe think about pivoting out of one of these places and looking for some operational experience.

And because you see in the data that works.

[00:28:42] Maria Wich-Vila: And they’re doing themselves a service not only in terms of enhancing their admissions chances, but even just in terms of determining, what do I want to do with my career? If I do eventually want to go into industry, what functional role do I want to have?

What industry do I want to work in? So it’s, it actually benefits them in the long term to do that as well, even if they don’t go to business school. I think those secondments and externships and second job, post consulting jobs are extremely valuable. Totally agree with you.

[00:29:06] Caroline Diarte Edwards: And I’m sure they also bring more to the classroom as well.

I would think that’s also why Stanford is selecting some of those candidates, because not only have they worked at McKinsey, but they’ve also led a non profit in Africa or worked in private equity or whatever it is. So they have much more breadth that they can bring to the classroom. And I think that It’s seen as a very valuable contribution

[00:29:29] John Byrne: in Heidi.

Did you see that? The majority of the candidates to examined actually did work in more than one place, right?

[00:29:37] Heidi Hillis: Yes, most of them did. There were very few that, you see working at one place. And I would say that those are people that would have really risen through the ranks.

Someone who’s worked at Walmart and become, started in, I don’t know, in one state, but then to become a regional manager and things like that really are going to onto a global role. The people who have stayed at one place really have shown significant career progression within that.

And then the other people I think you do see a lot of movement. The big. The most typical would be from investment banking to private equity and then you do find in finance, there’s a little bit less kind of movement into other industries. You see a lot of people staying within finance, but within finance.

Yeah. Yeah. The other industries, especially consulting or other, tech, people are really moving into other places and it’s becoming, it is a little bit difficult. We have these categories that we’ve talked about, for example, healthcare, but it’s hard to categorize some of these companies.

Are they healthcare? Are they tech? There’s a lot of overlap. And so everything’s a little bit of tech in something nowadays. So whether it’s finance and fintech or education and ed tech or health care and health tech, these are all merging and combining. It’s hard to categorize them.

[00:30:53] John Byrne: So looking at the data here I wonder if you’ve seen your old classmates in the sense that these new people are very much like the people you went to school with at Stanford. I

[00:31:05] Heidi Hillis: put this out and it’s really interesting to a lot of my classmates downloaded the report and read it. And a lot of them came back and said, oh, boy, I would never get in now.

It’s these people are super impressive. I think that you see a lot of. It’s just become more and more competitive. And I think that with more information and more people every year applying, it is becoming really difficult. I think that you do see a lot of, I am encouraged by the diversity part of it that you see still Stanford.

I feel like they do take risks on some really interesting profiles and candidates that maybe some other schools are less likely to do. And so that’s what does give me. A lot of hope when I get some kind of really nontraditional candidate who wants to, their dream school is Stanford. I feel like, I say all the time, there’s a 6 percent chance.

You’re going to get in, but there’s 100 percent chance. You won’t get in if you don’t apply. So you’ve got to, you got to give it a go. And that’s, the attitude that we take to it.

[00:32:04] John Byrne: Indeed. So for all of you out there read Heidi’s article on our site, it’s called who gets in and why exclusive research.

Into Stanford GSB and I’ll tell you one conclusion I have about this is that, man, if you really want to get into Stanford, you need a Sherpa, and and Heidi would be a great Sherpa for you because the, just the profiles of these folks, where they’ve been, what they’ve done, what they’ve accomplished in their early lives is so remarkable that To compete against, in this pool for a spot in the class you need every possible advantage you can get.

And and having an expert guide you through this trip probably would be a really big advantage. So Heidi, thank you for sharing your insights with us and the research, the very cool research.

[00:33:01] Heidi Hillis: Thank you

[00:33:03] John Byrne: and for all of you out there. Good luck. And if you want to go to Stanford, you got to check out this report.

Okay. It will inspire you to up your game, even if you are from Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, or wherever McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Goldman, Google, you want to look at this report and you want to really think about. What it will really take to get in. I think it will inspire you, motivate you to really put your best foot forward.

Thanks for listening. This is John Byrne with Poets& Quants.

Maria

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